NXP Semiconductors to roll out automotive-grade Ethernet chip solutions
(iTers News) - Coming built with a bevy of radars and camera sensors, cars of today are smart enough not only to warn against a lane departure and an imminent car collision, but also detect objects in the blind spots in what's called as ADAS, or advanced driving assistance system, or surround view system.
At the heart of the ADAS is what's called as IVN, or in-vehicle network, the sort of car inter-networking system that connect a grid of sensor nodes like radar and cameras image sensors with an array of MCU-based sensor fusion and actuators to process data and then transmit it back and forth to get system into the action.
As ADAS technology rapidly evolves to process high-definition video image data in a real time basis, so does the IVN technology to meet the strong requirements for higher bandwidth and higher data rate- fast enough to transfer such content-heavy image data at a broadband speed.
That helps explain why car makers are rapidly moving to embrace the Ethernet technology.
As car makers are especially working hard on the development of a future generation of self-driving cars, the Ethernet technology will likely emerge as a de facto IVN backbone technology standard in the years to come.
"Cars of today come built with about 10 radars and 15 camera sensors. So, we now see cars become more and more like an industrial robot. You need higher bandwidth and you need very fast reply time. Otherwise, that's not a driving robot. Of course, consumers want to have seamless infotainment in the car. There need to be a better backbone technology, " said Lars Reger, CTO with NXP semiconductors.
True enough, Ethernet is the proven backbone IP technology for consumer electronics and IT devices being widely used with PCs, telecommunications, avionics, and industrial applications.
The prevalence gives it much-needed economy of scale, which helps it undercut other rival backbone technology on costs, as there are a rich set of MAC layers, software and other components available already, eliminating the need for developing those components. It enusres faster time to market, too .
It also comes cheaper, because it uses relatively cheap unshielded twisted copper wires.
More importantly, while traditional IVN technologies like LIN, CAN, and FlexRay transfer data at speed of 20 Kbps, 500Kbps 10Mbps , respectively, the Ethernet can transfer several hundred megabits of data at a broadband speed, allowing the car to respond to changes in the neighboring traffic conditions in a real time.
Cars look more like industrial robots
"Car makers came to us asking "NXP, could you help us drive down the bill of material, or BOM costs. Do you have any idea on single unshielded, twisted pair of cables. That's the cheapest one we can get on the market. The Ethernet cable also helps save the cable weight by 30%," added CTO Lars Reger.
Yet, the Ethernet technology has to go a way to go until it would become a de facto IVN standard, as it has yet to be proven in the harsh and rigorous automotive environment especially when it comes to EMC and quality, temperature, and power consumption.
That's where the forte of BroadR-Reach Ethernet technology comes in. The BroadR-Reach Ethernet technology is what a standard-setting body called as Open Alliance Special Interest Group is establishing as a de facto automotive Ethernet technology standard.
About 180 companies have so far joined the Open Alliance Special Interest Group as members, including car makers, semiconductor chipmakers and other tier-1 and-2 automotive parts and components makers.
The BroadR-Reach automotive Ethernet technology was developed by chip maker Broadcom Corp, boasting of a high data rate bandwidth of 100 Mbps per port while dramatically reducing connectivity costs and cabling weight.
NXP Semiconductors is one of the founding members for the standard-setting alliance.
According to market research firm Gartner, the worldwide implementation of Ethernet ports would skyrocket from 5.2 million units in 2015 to 241.7 million units in 2023. Of total, 181.9 million ports will be based on 100 Mbps BroadR-Reach standard. The alliance is working on developments of two wire unshielded twisted pair gigabit Ethernet technology.
NXP Semiconductors has licensed the BroadR-Reach technology from Broadcom and then has implemented it into its Ethernet chip solutions.
NXP's first implementation of the BroadR-Reach Ethernet technology is its Ethernet PHY TJA1100 a sort of Ethernet transceiver chip.
Built with the 100Mps Open Alliance BroadR-Reach automotive Ethernet standard (IEEE: 100BASE-T1), the TJA 1100 is the world's power thriftiest Ethernet transceiver chip that incorporates NXP's indigenous power- saving IP.
"The cool thing of this PHY layer is that it has NXP's power-management capability IP that was installed on our partial networking CAN transceiver. What that means is that whenever there is no traffic on the Ethernet bus, all relevant control units go sleep. If you do with existing Broadcom's BroadR-Rech solution, you can't have that low power capability. As long as the system is no needed, all things automatically go down including microcontrollers and MAC layers, If there is wake-up call, its built-in watchdog, which stays wake alone to listen to any data package coming, tells " Hey everyone, let's be up to work". That's our value proposition," CTO Lars Reger said
The sleep and wake-up capability helps the transceiver chip to save a lot of power just consuming about 300 microwatts, compared with other solutions that consume 2 milli-watts.
According to him, Broadcom's BroadR-Reach Ethernet technology for use in PC just wait for the coming data packet consuming nearly 1,000 times more power than NXP's Ethernet transceiver TJ1100.
Unlike conventional solutions, the NXP Ethernet PHY does not require additional components like voltage regulators to stay on, either, while the engine is off, which greatly improves power consumption and battery lifetime.
The transceiver chip comes in a small form factor of 6x6mm² HVQFN package, It is also automotive grade ESD and EMC protection.
Time-critical missions
To cash in on car makers rapid embrace of the Ethernet technology, NXP has also unveiled one more Ethernet chip solution - Automotive Ethernet Switch SJA1105.
The beauty of the chip is that it incorporates a deterministic Ethernet technology to guarantee message latency in such applications as future generation of autonomous driving, where deterministic communication is vital in guaranteeing functional safety.
The deterministic Ethernet technology is all about how to accommodate different speed classes of Ethernet traffics that flow through the IVN, including real-time synchronous traffic, standard Ethernet traffics, and streaming traffics.
To accommodate these different classes of Ethernet traffics, the chip implements various standards like Ethernet IEEE 802.3, Time-Triggered Ethernet (SAE AS6802) as well as IEEE802.1 Q Audio Video Bridging (AVB) and Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN). For example, IEEE802.3 can handle standard Ethernet traffics like e-mail transactions, while TSN IEEE820.1 standard can take care of time-critical mission like real-time synchronous data traffic. The Time-Triggered-Ethernet standard accommodates fail -operational traffic. The 5 port Ethernet switch also supports network speed of up to 1 gigabit. More importantly, it is scalable enough and flexible enough to accommodate future changes in the network topology.
The deterministic Ethernet technology was developed by TTTech Computertechnik AG, a networking safety solution provider, which is a subsidiary of car maker Audi. NXP has licensed and implemented it into its Ethernet switch chip in the cooperation with TTTech.
The Ethernet transceiver TJA1100 are available in prototype samples right now, and mss-production is scheduled to start sometime before the end of the year. The first samples of the NXP Ethernet Switches SJA1105 have already been successfully tested by car makers and are available now.
